Learning to play the Guitar is difficult and time consuming. Even with an instructor, learning to play well can be challenging at best. One particular difficulty is learning the layout of the notes on a guitar fretboard and learning to press the correct strings (known as fretting). In a conventional learning scenario a novice player looks at diagrams of chords and scales displayed in a book, sheet music, chord chart, or on a computer screen, and attempts to place his of her fingers on the guitar fretboard corresponding to information on the diagram. This task is painstakingly slow and arduous and much of the information is lost in translating the information from text to fretboard. In addition, physical movement of the player's eyes from the diagram to the fretboard can cause confusion. Students are invariably relegated to a head-bobbing motion, back and forth, from diagram to guitar, until they place their fingers in the correct positions.
In some cases, a student will hire a guitar teacher to show them the correct finger positions. The teacher will place his or her fingers in a correct position on a guitar and the student will look on and attempt to mimic the teacher's movements. However, this approach suffers from the same drawbacks as the student looking at a book—the student must look back and forth between the student's guitar and the teacher's guitar. Another drawback is that guitar teachers can usually only teach one or two students at a time, making lessons expensive.
Accordingly, there exists a need to efficiently and effectively teach one or more students to play a musical instrument, and in particular, to play a stringed instrument.